September 14, 2012

Donna D.’s signature sandwich is fresh mozzarella on a roll with tomatoes, shredded iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced pickles, a small amount of white onions which must be sliced paper thin and honey mustard sauce. As simple odd as this sandwich may sound, very few delis have been able to perfect it. Either the bread is stale, they don’t shred the lettuce, or even **gasp** use processed mozzarella or even **larger gasp** don’t use the right honey mustard sauce (which I actually don’t even know the name of the brand I prefer). Only two delis have been able to master my sandwich, Toasties in NYC and the Ave in New Rochelle (yes I’ve schlepped to Westchester for my favorite sandwich). You would too if you have ever experienced the amazingness of the Ave.

But at last I have found another deli that can not only perfect my sandwich but also offers da bomb sandwiches for DIRT cheap. I’m talking $7.50 for a foot-long sandwich that can easily feed two people. Sal, Kris, & Charlie’s Deli is just north of the Triborough bridge in Astoria and is an old school deli. Their signature sandwich “The Bomb” is basically every meat and cheese that they offer loaded into a freshly baked Italian sub. The sheer weight of it could easily knock out anyone trying to steal it from you. The sandwich is that good. So be prepared to use it as a weapon to fight off perps.

Sal’s is a cash only joint and doesn’t have any seating so be prepared. For an inexpensive date I suggest grabbing food from Sal’s then heading over to Socrates Sculpture Garden or Astoria Park for a picnic.